The central role of science in society was much in evidence across this year's wealth of Nobel laureates. In addition to the three scientific prizes - chemistry, medicine and physics - science turns out to have been key in the backgrounds of both the peace and literature laureates.

This year's prize for peace was awarded to Wangari Maathai for her contribution to 'sustainable development, democracy and peace'.

Maathai will be the first woman from Africa to receive the Nobel peace prize, but she was already the first woman in east and central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. She gained a Masters in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, US, in 1966 and followed this up with a PhD from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. In 1976 she became chair of the university's Department of Veterinary Anatomy.

'Maathai combines science, social commitment and active politics,' wrote the Norwegian Nobel Committee in a release at the time of the announcement. 'More than simply protecting the existing environment, her strategy is to secure and strengthen the very basis for ecologically sustainable development.'

The 2004 winner of the Nobel prize in literature is not a scientist but comes from a strongly scientific background. Writer Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 to a Viennese mother and a father of Czech-Jewish origin. Her father was a chemist who worked in strategically important industrial production during the second world war, thus escaping persecution, according to a bio-bibliography supplied by the Swedish Academy.

The scientific awards strongly underline the value of a cross-disciplinary approach. This year's winners of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, for example, were rewarded for their work on determining how organisms detect and identify chemical substances.

Richard Axel and Linda Buck published a paper together in 1991 describing a 1000-strong family of genes that encode odorant receptors. Although the researchers no longer work together, they have continued to clarify the olfactory system, from the molecular level up.

Most odours are composed of multiple odorant molecules, and each odorant molecule activates several odorant receptors. This leads to a combinatorial code forming an 'odorant pattern', underlying man's ability to recognise and form memories of approximately 10 000 odours.

Similarly, this year's chemistry prize (see p36) is a triumph of the multidisciplinary approach - with three laureates from backgrounds in medicine, biochemistry and biophysics. Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose were awarded the honour for their discovery of ubiquitin, a molecule that tags unwanted cellular components for destruction. The discovery sheds light on a host of cellular processes - from cell division and DNA repair to new protein production and immune defence.

And so to the prize for physics, awarded to three physicists for their theory of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD). The laureates showed that the force between sub-atomic quarks gets unexpectedly weaker as quarks get closer together, and stronger as they move apart.

The theory makes an important contribution to the Standard Model, according The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the prize. The model describes all physics connected with the electromagnetic force (which acts between charged particles), the weak force (which is important for the sun's energy production) and the strong force (or colour force) that acts between quarks.

Perhaps this is the pinnacle of the cross-disciplinary approach. 'Thanks to their discovery, David Gross, David Politzer and Frank Wilczek have brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a grand dream,' reads a release from the prize-awarding institution. 'To formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well - a theory for everything.'

Bea Perks